sundays getting more bleak
by misguideddreamer
Summary: This is what she knows: hers is the neverending story, and this is forever. (or bonnie bennett trapped with kai)


**warnings: abuse. dark themes. **

**PART ONE: we were born sick (but i love it)  
**

When Bonnie awakes, it is to complete darkness. She's lying on the floor of the cave and there is crimson, spreading, spreading. She looks at the bloom of red against the white of her blouse and sucks in a breath as the memories wash over her like little stabs to the heart, each one.

And Damon is gone.

She looks up at the pillar of light where he once stood, fights through the pain in her belly that is like she is being sliced in two, and cries silently, huge gasping sobs as she tries to force a smile through quivering lips.

"I'm alright," Bonnie Bennett whispers, as she has done since she's been nine years old and coming home to an empty house filled with the dust of mothers past. "I'm fine."

This is what she knows: hers is the neverending story, and this is forever. The sticks are uncomfortable and rough against her back, and outside, night has fallen. If she turns left, she will find herself at her old house. If she turns right, she will find herself at Elena's.

If she looks straight ahead, there is a man with a crossbow and a smile on his face. And he is waiting for her.

"Why," Bonnie chokes, and the pain in her chest is suddenly stifling. "Why?"

"I think you know why," He says and the smile he gives her is blinding, the sound of his voice echoing off the walls.

Bonnie Bennett tries to fight for the last time in her too long yet too short life, and tries to send him back to where he belongs, up in a cloud of smoke and ash and gone for good.

Her voice quivers, shakes and drops off all together. She can't do it. And the realisation that she is fully spent, not even a glimmer of her magic there to recharge her is there in the back of her mind, written all over her tearstained face.

This is what she knows: hers is the neverending story, and this is _forever_.

* * *

The sight of the man in front of her swims before her eyes and she takes in the blurs of red and orange before she truly registers where she is. The fireplace is on behind him, the orange flames flickering and leaping high into the chimney.

_Ash_, Bonnie Bennett thinks and suddenly has a desire to watch him die in it.

He has blood on his hands. It's time for her to get a little on hers.

But there is Damon's voice on her shoulder, coaxing her in that way of his she is so used to, the glimmer of the smirk in his tone as he looks at her. _Wait a while, Judgey. See if there's something to milk him for. _

She knows: Damon is not comfortable with the idea of his Bonnie Bennett as a killer. She is, to him, moral and good and just, above all else.

And it is Kai's voice that snaps her out of his reverie, the smirk lacing his tone so different to Damon's. So jarring.

"Was it worth it?" He asks aloud. "Will your friends be working tirelessly to get you back and leave me here. Will they do that for you?"

Bonnie sits as straight as she can and does not hesitate.

"Yes." She says firmly, and there is enough conviction in her tone that Kai cackles.

* * *

She has a plan.

Of course she has a plan.

Her name is Bonnie Bennett and she is a direct descendant of the most powerful witch that ever lived. She has her mother's backbone and her grandmother's steel. She will do this.

But she will not do this alone, Bonnie reminds herself- no, convinces herself. She imagines the fringes of her friends that are moving silently out of her grasp, working and working to bring her back. Damon will make sure of it.

And right now there is nothing she can focus on but the sound of her own breathing through three times dead lungs, trying in vain to push out the air from her lungs. The ground is swimming, swimming beneath the feet of her Doc Martens.

"You forget," Kai says from in front of her, his customary grin on his face. "This is my hell, Bon Bon. And I know what's in it like the back of my hand."

Bonnie swings into the nearest tree trunk and takes a moment to catch her breath, sucking in lungfuls of air and hoping he doesn't come any closer.

"Keep running, Bon Bon," His voice is a teasing lilt, easy smirk reminiscent of every too confident boy she has ever known. "We both know what will happen in the end."

She has an hour.

Bonnie looks through the trees, squints at the blue sky that is swimming before her eyes. An hour to shake him and somehow get the missing piece she needs.

An hour and the blood is still spreading.

His eyes are gleaming, and Bonnie wonders; why has he not come closer?

The smirk that twists across his face is all the answer she needs and he throws the missing piece upwards, watching it catch the sun with a whistle. "Pretty, isn't it?"

Kai grins and Bonnie takes the oppourtunity to ram a tree branch into the back of his head.

* * *

_Take two,_ Bonnie thinks to herself and above her, the sun winks mockingly.

His breath is a whisper on her shoulder. "Not so fast, honey." Bonnie sucks in a breath, finds she can't breathe as his finger traces a pattern over the skin of her exposed neck.

And this- Kai thinks with a little laugh- _this _is what affects little Bonnie Bennett more than anything else he could throw at her. She's fought with monsters well enough to be able to draw his blood (and take it) without so much as batting an eye- she's not used to affection.

So he spins his finger in a little circle around her neck and laughs again.

"I bought a peace offering," He whispers, dips his head a little closer to her and _feels_ the power thrumming like a drumbeat under the surface of her skin.

Bonnie stiffens, tries to collect her thoughts which have gone haywire because the feel of his breath on her flesh is a little too much like Jeremy, the way he would brush his lips against her shoulder when they were both still sweaty, the rasp of his beard on her skin-

-"Get _off_," She shrieks with a little more force than necessary, and trips over the bag he has deposited at her feet in her haste to get away.

This world is empty; scrubbed clean of her past mistakes. No, it is his mistakes which gather around her, thick and heavy and dark, cloying and dragging her down.

Bonnie slices her hand open with a grim smile and forces herself to focus.

His arm clutches her shoulder and he shoots her a pretty smile. "Don't want to leave me behind, do we?"

Bonnie Bennett grits her teeth and sends him a saccharine smile.

She has fifteen minutes; she knows. Long enough to drag her feet a little, wait for him to speak his mind. Long enough to keep him on his toes.

"You know," He begins, and his tone is almost conversational, quiet and rocking her in its lull. "I'd like to be more like you, Bennett."

His words roll over her skin like a caress, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake, and she looks up at the earnestness in his eyes, gleaming at her. "You're strong, and you're brave and you're _beautiful_."

Bonnie does not allow herself to change her face the slightest; remains stoic with the Ascendant clutched in her shaking hands, the bear at her feet. Kai uses each words as if he has weighed it out, selected it for the purpose at hand.

_There is a purpose she is the purpose_, Bonnie smiles up at him and clenches the muscle of the arm he is holding. She is flesh and blood and bone.

"Let's go-home," She says with enough conviction that she almost convinces herself. Bonnie lingers on the words as Kai did, puts weight in every one of them, convinces herself so she can convince him.

And then she sends the bear home.

* * *

"My magic- _it's gone oh god I'm not_-" Her voice veers on hysteric as she looks up at the now dulled sky, the sun gone to hide.

Kai's shriek of anger is enough to propel her into the nearest wall, and Bonnie allows herself a secret smile against the wall of the cave.

Here- this is where she died before.

This is where she'll die again.

"Honey," He whispers against her throat and his words are cajoling, "What do you mean it's gone?" His hands are large and soft and warm against her arms, a warm bath on an autumn day.

_"It's gone-" _He roars and Bonnie whips around to face him, fire in her eyes and burning in his skin._ "What have you done?"  
_

Bonnie shrugs easily, presses the blade of her words against his throat and cuts.

"I was brave." She mocks him and watches him freeze, looking at the cavern floor. "I was strong and I did what you expected."

"Where's the bear?" He asks and their is rage, blazing red with the blue of desperation in his gaze.

"A safer place," Her smile is easy and free, and she turns and-

-_runs_.

* * *

The whispers of them are everywhere she turns; and it's silly but Bonnie finds comfort in the Salvatore Boarding house, wood familiar under her bare feet.

She makes herself pancakes and finds that she can't quite make the fangs _right_, finds that they taste a little tearstained when she shoves them into her mouth, stomach rolling, remembers Damon's devotion to Elena and wonders if she'll ever be truly happy.

(She sleeps in an empty bed, a cold bed filled with ghosts she doesn't know of, but she can feel them with her at night, these dead people that surround her and laugh and Bonnie knows she's losing her mind)

It takes him three days.

Three days of peace which has her twisting and second guessing and trying her utmost to keep herself calm as she can.

She takes to reading Stefan's old diaries, turning the thick pages and learning of almost loves and too many dead and finds herself recoiling.

Stefan has a way really. He convinces himself he's not a monster then spirals to his rage once more, consumed by bloodlust.

She's in 1874 when he catches up to her, and Bonnie hears his footstep into the house as her pulse picks up, beating like a frightened bird in her hollowed out chest.

The knife he tosses at her misses her easily, and from his smooth smile she knows he meant it to.

"Now now," His face is contorted and Bonnie knows that his anger has only grown, swelled into a crescendo that will never quite die down again, running through her pulse like a beat of panic. "Do you regret it yet?"

His tone is wheedling and he's trying to get under her skin, to prise his way deep so he can twist her to his own end.

"Why would I?" She sends a particularly heavy hardback flying towards him with a quick throw, and he sidesteps it almost as if he's bored.

She's never prepared for the fluidity of his movements.

One moment he is surveying her with a little interest in his eyes- the next he has his hand wrapped loosely around her throat and his breath is hot on her cheek as he whispers.

"Because I'm going to corrupt you," His lips brush against her ear, and Bonnie's heart stops altogether, then shudders to a start. "And if they ever get you back you're going to be twisted, and Bon Bon you won't even see it coming."

Bonnie rams her knee upwards and sends him sprawling to the floor with a grim smile.

"Are they still coming for you?" Kai chokes out and Bonnie hesitates, but she replies.

"Of course," She sends a bruising kick to his ribs for good measure.

* * *

She tastes red in every word he blows her way, in every hit he does her best to mark her with and Bonnie becomes very good at dodging hits.

Good at giving hits of her own.

And every hit is accompanied with a little lesson, his lips always pressed to some part of her skin, as if he is trying to breathe in her light and the blood that is running through her body.

_Press a little harder to the pulse point and you'll feel it I swear, it will be as their pulse is running through you- _

or

_It's art, Bennett, you'll understand in a while, I'll teach you_

and the worst thing is she is beginning to fall and each time she wraps her own hands around his neck she feels a little thrill of victory, a leap of her heart that signifies that she's _won something_.

Bonnie looks at Kai, chest heaving as they stand before each other, and he throws his head back and laughs.

"You'd better get used to it," He sing songs and she focuses on the sound of Damon's voice running through her mind_ and he is coming for her, she just needs to hold on_. "This is forever, babe."

"He's coming back for-me," Bonnie grits her teeth and pushes him into the wall with the force of her rage, forearm pressed to his neck. " . ."

"Sure, honey." His arms are around her waist before she can make another move, and this time it is she with her back against the wall, Kai's hands travelling up and down her arms, up and down.

"And anyway," His whisper is ice against her ear for once. "Why do you always say him? Where are the rest of them?"

"They're coming too," Bonnie swears but her voice lacks conviction.

He notices.

The laugh rings out from his chest and around, round and round in her mind until she can't so much as sleep.

* * *

Bonnie thinks: She was a witch once. She was a godess.

The water on her skin is cold and it is icy, but it cuts into the jumble that is her mind well enough that she prefers being here than the alternative.

The alternative is being chased by Kai, is more cuts and bruises and more second guessing.

The moonlight is warm on her exposed body, raising goosebumps and bathing her in a silvery glow. She has done battle here many times (done battle in every single place this godforsaken town has to offer)

She has watched her family crumble around her, seen her father's head sliced off and been helpless, raised those from the dead.

And now she is an empty vessel.

She watches the silver of the water slide over her skin; pool into her belly with each breath she takes and convinces herself that this is peace.

"Having fun?"

Her foot fumbles to find somewhere to rest itself, fumbles and misses.

Bonnie rights herself and the water ripples around them, moving forward and back with each breath she takes. She studies the sinewy muscles of his body, studies the fresh cuts and angry bruises and almost smiles.

"I was."

A thread hangs between them, a thread of water and silvery moonlight separating their bodies from one another.

She has known, really. It was bound to come to this.

Bonnie kicks his leg out from underneath his as swiftly as she can, arcing gracefully under the water as he flounders for a split second. Kai's hand closes around her ankle and she feels herself being dragged back for a moment-

She kicks out of his grip just in time to reach the relative safety of the large rock.

The moment she is given is enough to catch her breath (enough to force the excitement beating in her pulse down, _down_) but his arms around her naked waist are there, and they are expected.

Bonnie finds her back placed flat against the rock, Kai's mouth hovering over hers, his hands clutching her wrists.

"Your move, Bon Bon," He speaks but his voice is trembling, and it is that which makes Bonnie arch upwards and pull his bottom lip between her own.

They fuck like they fight- it's a fine line between the two, honestly- and he forces one of his thighs between her legs and hoists her up onto it, while Bonnie finds herself tugging on his hair hard enough to be painful, just shy of excruciating.

He gasps when they break apart, and Bonnie notes the blood seeping from the cut on his lip with triumph, grins and pulls his mouth back down on hers.

They both take, take (Bonnie is, for the first time unashamed that she wants her own pleasure and doesn't give a shit about his) and he thrusts into her with the ferocity of a wild animal, and although she'll deny it later, she's enjoying it.

She takes her orgasm with a scream- there is no one here to listen, and she has learned not to care- and he follows suit, curling his fingers around her throat and licking the salt off her skin.

He murmmurs something like _too long_ and Bonnie can't help the grin that spills from her lips like the sun.

* * *

The next morning they are back to the usual fight and run, but Bonnie can't find something more playful in Kai everytime he throws something her way.

He has her hair in his fist, has her back pressed against the wall and his lips are on her neck, staining her with the bloodied lip she gave him yesterday with her favourite ring.

Bonnie kicks him away with a high heeled boot and watches with pleasure as he collapses on the sofa.

Her legs find their way around his hips and he grins up at her, smile quick and cutting. "Regret it yet?"

The question has been asked a thousand times before, by him, and it is leaking into her soul. It spins around in her head and keeps turning, in the quiet moments of the night where she is alone with the blue dark.

"They're coming for me," She says almost absentmindedly, moving atop him.

Kai drums a beat into the skin of her wrist and grins. "Took you almost 30 seconds, that time."

He leans up, keeps his eyes fixed on hers and licks the exposed skin of her stomach.

"Don't worry, it's working," He singsongs, and Bonnie thinks in the split second before she slaps his head back, it is.

Her stomach curls.

* * *

It's been months and Kai is lodged firmly in her mind, taking up her every waking moment so that even the voice of Damon she had used as sanity is no longer there, tethering her.

Bonnie knows; she is becoming corrupted. She knows he was right.

_There is nothing left,_ Kai whispers when his arm is curled around her and they are spent, neither of them willing to fight. _You might have been good once, but there is nothing left. And they are not coming. _

Bonnie thinks of her bear, sent over as a sign, the key to get her back. _Damon's coming_, she tells herself, but can't breathe around the sharp lodged in her chest.

And maybe he is right and they are not coming.

Maybe they never were.

Bonnie sits up and the sheet pools around her waist.

Kai's hand is there on her back, there and real. It is there, anchoring her and holding her. It is a hand that seems to say- _this is real, I am real_-

not them.

"Tell me," Kai says when she puts her head back onto the pillow, his voice quiet and the mocking tone gone for a moment. "Tell me."

Bonnie is not sure why, but she does.

* * *

And in the morning he takes her wrist in a bruising grip and makes her turn left.

Kai is getting her to divulge all her secrets; tell him her life until there is nothing left and she is open to him. Bonnie doesn't care to stop him.

This is forever, after all. And she's got no idea if- when- they will come for her but she's got her stories and she's got her secrets and she needs to tell someone.

"Elena's," He guesses as he stands outside the house, and Bonnie squirms out of his grip, dances out of his reach

-but she nods anyway.

And answers every question he asks (truthfully).

* * *

The night falls like any other.

Bonnie finds herself walking around her old house, finding her old clothes and toys, running her fingers over her father's shirts and her mother's pearls.

She sprays herself with Abby's scent and lets herself out of the house, leaving the door unlocked and creaking.

Kai pops up beside her and his fingers are around the back of her neck, digging into the skin there.

Bonnie's spoiling for a fight.

She aims a sloppy kick at his stomach, and he catches it and uses her leg to pull her forward so her legs are wrapped around her waist and his mouth is on her neck, working the skin there until she is marked.

"Regret it yet?" He asks and Bonnie has given up on answering.

That is his victory, she realises as the wind picks up around him and the trees beging to sway, warm gusts of wind picking up.

He licks a path down her neck and Bonnie shudders, but it's not a shudder like before.

Her body is convulsing before she knows what she is doing and she watches the panic in Kai's eyes, building and building as he deposits her on the ground.

"No-" He cries and his voice is hoarse as he feels her fading in his grip, and Bonnie can't hear anything past the whoosh in her ears.

But when he snags her (and he does) she feels that, feels his grip tighten as he is pulled along with her.

* * *

**PART TWO: take me to church (i'll worship like a dog in the shrine of your lies)**

_Bonnie, Bonnie, _his fingers are soft on her hair, and Bonnie feels something warm and wet slide onto the skin of her cheek and realises it is tears.

And that she is cradled in someone's arms.

She notices: the warm weight of a jean covered knee supporting her weight, the salt of tears on her lips, and that someone in the distance is screaming.

"What happened to her?" Elena's shriek cuts through the air, and she realises this too- the man currently cradling her in his arms is Damon.

Bonnie's eyes fly open and the cave's walls blur around her as she looks directly into the sun.

Damon lets out a prayer in Italian and Elena lets out another shriek.

Bonnie Bennett lies on the ground, covered in blood and hickeys, squints up at the yellow sun.

"Where is he?" And her voice comes out as a rasp. "Where did he go?"

* * *

They make her stay in bed.

Damon deposits her in his own bed and won't let go of some part of her, as if he can't quite believe that she's real, that she's really there. Elena's hovers at the doorway as she watches Bonnie move between sleep and wakefulness.

He listens to the question fall from her lips with a frown, takes his time exammining what he can see from her ripped blouse and shorts.

There are cuts and bruises (expected) and hickeys (unexpected).

He drops her hand with a start and begins to speak.

In the bed, Bonnie stills, and listens.

"Elena and I...we're done. She's not getting her memories back, Witchy. It was a waste of your life bringing me back." He sighs, and there is a rustle of bedsheets, as she shifts, still floating in slight oblivion, but she can hear him. "You must have regretted it. And I missed you."

His next words are lost in the blur as she remembers,

_Kai's face glaring down at her from above, the smile caught in the snarl on his lips. "Do you regret it?" _

_And then his hands around her throat, pressing and he keeps smiling and Bonnie digs her elbow a little harder into his chest. "No!"_

_"He was as bad as I was," But there is a time for words and it is not now, and he falls silent. _

Bonnie's eyes open again, this time more slowly.

"Where is he?" And her voice comes out empty, a broken whisper and a slight tremble.

Damon's eyes are wide when he looks down. "Where's who?"

"Kai," Bonnie says impatiently, and sits up, running her fingers through her now shoulder length hair, wincing as her hand catches on a purple bruise at the side of her neck. "He came with me."

He gives her the blank look, the look of I don't know what you're talking about, you've gone round the bend.

"Bonnie," Damon says and he leans in until his voice is a hush on her cheek, "You came back alone. He's not here anymore."

Bonnie blinks up at Damon and wonders when she'll wake up from her dream.

* * *

Caroline is bright and bubbly and still a shell of her usual self when she comes to visit Bonnie. But she hugs her close and her tears are real.

"I'm so glad you're back," She sobs and sobs and Bonnie takes in the usual scent of her and something in her mind tells her that she is really here. "Don't do that to us ever again."

Stefan stands beside her bed and fidgets, minutes after Caroline has exited in a whirl of blonde hair and whispered promises that she will come again tomorrow with baked goods.

"He didn't talk about you, you know, for the first few months," He begins conversationally but he's avoiding her eyes, and she knows Stefan well enough to know that there is guilt in the line of his body. Before, she would try to absolve it. Now, she lies back on the pillows and watches him through hooded eyes. "He thought that Elena would come round, and thought he had to spend every waking moment chasing her in order to make it worthwile. And then he let her go."

His green eyes flicker and zero in on her soul.

"I'm back," Bonnie says wearily, running her hands through her hair. "I'm back and it's enough."

"Not for him."

Something hangs in the air between them, quivers, snaps.

It will have to be.

* * *

Bonnie is a mess of thoughts and memories and _she doesn't know where she is_.

She stands at the crossroads which lead to her house.

This is what she knows: If she turns left Kai will be there, lying in wait in the school as he always did, every morning, ready to pounce and maybe she'd come to anticipate it, just a little. If she turns back there will be the ghosts in the Salvatore mansion. If she turns right..

"I'll be here," Damon says and shoots her a smile.

Bonnie snaps out of her reverie, and starts, wonders, wonders. She has grown used to the idea of talking aloud to herself- there is no one there to hear her?

"You're a sociopath," Bonnie snaps and watches his face fall, thinks back to the way Kai used to form the words when he said them against her skin. "And you didn't come for me."

Damon blinks, turns.

_Do you regret it? _The Kai in her head sing songs.

Damon moves towards her as if she is a particularly beautiful butterfly he wishes to catch. Bonnie moves away, dancing out of reach of his fingertips.

"Bonnie-" And his voice is cracking, crumbling around the edges. "I want to talk to you about what happened on The Other Side."

Against her better judgement, she follows. She follows with Kai in the back of her mind, his whispers running around and around her mind.

_If you trusted me, __I would come back for you. You're beautiful and brave and strong. _

"Nothing happened," she says with a saccharine smile. "It was empty and sad without Mr Cuddles."

Damon runs a finger over a particularly violent hickey that has yet to fade. "And these?"

She falls silent, and he smiles.

"Don't tell me our sweet little virginal Bennett has finally found the wonders of rough sex?"

Bonnie rolls her eyes and taps a little rhythm on the tabletop in front of her. Damon freezes.

_I remember that tune,_ his eyes tell her and the picks up the pace, taps it out a little faster. She's caught between what's right and what's real and everything in between.

"Did he get inside of you?" He asks strangely, and Bonnie grins.

"In a way," She says and Damon relaxes a little, folding into that nonchalant slouch she knows, the line of his body curving towards her. "He's not with me now."

But his words are running their drumbeat across her soul. Bonnie Bennett is tired, disorientated, _she just needs a moment_.

* * *

Jeremy waits until she is safely esconced in her own home before he comes to find her.

Bonnie opens the door to her supposed great love and looks at him standing on the doorstep with a grim smile on her face, and nothing in her heart.

Her heart is hollowed out, empty, _gone_.

She lets him in anyway, and his arms are good and strong and real around her body. His scent is one she knows like the back of her hand. But there are new lines crowding his face, darker circles around his eyes.

And guilt in his gaze when he looks at her.

Bonnie smiles; there is no guilt in her salt green eyes when she looks at him.

"I thought you weren't coming back," He says breathlessly, almost waiting for the reproach of her tongue.

She steps aside and lets him into her home, and his gaze falls onto the marks, still angry purple against her skin. There is a question on the tip of his tongue, but it is a question he is not allowed to ask.

There will always be love in her for him- he was her tether to this Earth when she had no one else, and he was her first everything. There is something about Jeremy which calms Bonnie; reminds her that some part of her, at least, is home.

She locks away the part of her mind that sing songs-_he can't make you feel like I did_\- sits with Jeremy and tells him it's over with a soft smile and the Bennett way of letting people down well.

"I'm sorry," Jeremy breathes out and Bonnie hugs him, thanks him silently for _caring_. "I love you."

She squeezes his hand in her own. _Me too_.

And then he's gone and it's for good.

* * *

They talk behind her back.

They gather and have little meetings on whether or not she is back to normal yet, tiptoe around her in the daylight. Bonnie walks on her own in the night, fragments of her mind still sure she is alone.

Her feet dangle silvery blue in the water before her, and she hears Damon behind her moments later.

"My guard?" She raises an eyebrow and he shrugs, unaplogetic.

There is always one of them shadowing her movements, to make sure she is safe. And well- Elena's asked Bonnie to bring her memories back. Bonnie wouldn't, not even if she had the magic to do it.

"How's life been treating you?" Damon slides to the ground next to her and Bonnie takes a gulp of his bourbon.

"This is where we first fucked," Bonnie smiles and there is something in her tone as she looks out onto the rippling waters, _something_.

Damon's eyes glint with something and he replaces it with an easy laugh.

"Good for you, Bon Bon."

Although her mind tells her this; Damon used to call you that way before Kai ever did, the term still makes Bonnie shudder a little. "Got the girl yet?" She asks him because her mind tells her to, not because she really _cares_.

Damon looks at her with a smile. "I think I do," He says softly, and then catches himself.

The moon is a tiny crescent when she raises her eyes to it, a little smile winking at her. "He watches me, you know," the words spill from her mouth unbidden and she wraps her fingers within each other. "When I'm asleep."

"Bonnie-" Damon's voice is urgent, his hand on her shoulder twisting her to face him and he stresses each word now, as if she is a child. "You left him behind. He's not here."

Bonnie nods.

Smiles a secretive smile.

Just you wait.

* * *

The month passes and Bonnie begins to anchor herself to this world once more.

Each day is a little easier, a little clearer. She's back to her normal self (without the magic, back to her empty vessel) and she rises each morning, spends each afternoon with a rotation of Caroline or Elena or Matt and Jeremy.

And sometimes, even Damon and Stefan.

Damon treats her as if she is made of spun glass, makes her fang pancakes and puts on 90s music to make her feel at home as possible.

It's a rare afternoon when they are all together, the lazy sun hanging in the sky and winking at her. And she hasn't been able to shake the feeling of being watched, but today it is something tangible, wrapping around her heart and making it stop.

Bonnie rests her head against Caroline's stomach and shoots her gentle smile at the blue skies above. This peace will be shattered, her mind says, and then her heart stops.

Because he has just stepped out on the other side of the river bank, and Bonnie watches as he leans against the trunk, gives her a lazy wave.

_Miss me?_ The words in her mind sing song, and Bonnie lets out a gasp and sits up.

"Bonnie-" Damon is at her side in an instant, a little too attentive- a little too-

But he's there too, and they all freeze.

"Kai," He says in that lilting way of his, the words travelling down her spine. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

* * *

Bonnie stays where she is for a split second before she is on her feet and everything is imploding around her.

She hurls Caroline's latest romance novel at him with a viscious swipe, the cry escaping her when it hits his temple short lived when Damon snarls and lunges himself straight at Kai.

Stefan's arms hold Damon back instantly, forever there to anchor his brother's temper and Bonnie sucks in a breath, eyes wide and heart beating rabbit fast as Kai keeps his crossbow aloft at her throat.

"Don't move," He smiles at everyone else, disarming and completely comfortable.

And then he looks straight at her, and Bonnie meets his eyes and wishes she had a knife to throw at him. "I was expecting a warmer welcome, Bon Bon."

His voice is petulant, wheedling and her friends are frozen in place. Bonnie steps forward.

"I haven't got any magic for you to leech," She spits and watches his smile change. Kai tuts.

"Have some faith in yourself, Bon Bon."

_I taught you have faith in me_, he is saying, and Elena and Caroline are at her side, ready to strike. Kai's face contorts into something deadly, and Bonnie watches him angle the crossbow at Damon.

The spell that flies out from her tongue is second nature and she stares for a moment at his immobile form on the floor, wonders why-_why_\- her magic is tethered to Damon now.

"Bonnie-" Damon says and his arms are on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "I'm sorry for not beliveing you I'm sorry-"

Bonnie looks at Kai's form on the ground, looks and looks at the unnatural angle of his neck, the blood seeping from the cut in his head, blanches.

And then she falls.

* * *

Bonnie comes to a moment later, yellow stars swimming behind her lids and intense feeling of deja vu.

Because it is the same jean clad thigh holding her up, supporting her.

But this time is different, because this time she has her magic. Bonnie Bennett, feels it in her hands, weighs the feeling of the power inside her, takes a breath and rises.

"Everyone," She says softly, staring at Kai. "Go."

"We're not leaving you-"

"Go." Bonnie says firmly, and stares at the them all until they do, turning and moving back into the woods. They'll be there, though. Just far away enough that all of their vampire ears can hear everything they say.

She paces the ground at his feet, unsurprised to see the customary smile on his face. "Why didn't you kill me," She asks, and then, "Why has it taken so long?"

The air around them spins, picks up and Kai moves towards her as fast as he always does, fingers warm, gentle on her face. _Normal_.

Bonnie recoils. "Why would I kill you?" He whispers gently, "When you could join me?"

He has misjudged her, she thinks. But there's power in his palms and she feels it, enough that he doesn't need to leech off her. So he doesn't, in an effort to gain her trust, she supposes.

That's a mistake.

She might downplay her own abilities, but inside she knows this: She is a goddess. She is the last of her line. She has it all. And although she is not controlled by the spirits anymore, they will support her in this.

"I could join you," She steps out of his arms, out of his grip, out of his control. "Or I could destroy you."

Bonnie Bennett watches Kai's face fall, takes a deep breath and smiles.

"You can't kill me," He says, and his voice is back to that lilting one she hates so much.

Bonnie pauses, and turns her back to him, for a second- a heartbeat but one long enough that he almost leaves her there in the dust, but she_ is powerful_. And he is immobilised by a spell she didn't even know that she recalled.

Damon watches, keeps his distance not as well as the others as he hovers at her shoulder.

* * *

**PART THREE: knows everybody's disapproval (i should have worshipped her sooner)**

It takes her a good month longer to stop hearing his voice in her head.

She still has nightmares; she knows Damon does too, since Stefan has made it his business to tell her he isn't sleeping well, and sometimes she finds herself outside the Salvatore mansion when all else is quiet, wanting nothing more than to talk to Damon.

Tonight is one of those nights. Bonnie stares up at the yellow triangle of light that is the Salvatore Boarding house, turns, melts into the trees again.

Here is where I made my first hit, she thinks as she paces through the woods.

But tonight there is fire in her palms, and she can feel in thrumming through her veins. _I am Bonnie Bennett,_ she thinks, and silently lets herself into the Salvatore Boarding House.

Her footsteps are quiet in the house, but she casts a quick cloaking charm nonetheless as she makes her way to the basement.

This is her one vice.

Kai looks up as she enters; there is no surprise in his voice as he glances up to meet her eye.

"I knew you'd come tonight."

His voice is quiet- as calm as Kai gets, and his hand is outstretched through the bars, coaxing her closer. Bonnie gets as close as she dares before she begins to speak.

"I could kill you now."

He laughs, and the sound is bitter as it spirals through her. "You won't, Bon Bon. Try as you might but you're still drawn to me. I told you that you would be."

Bonnie wonders why she does this, continues punishing herself, but Kai shoots her a smile and draws a smiley face in the dirt by her feet.

"Let him go," Damon says from behind her, and he's leaning against the doorframe, blue eyes a little too piercing, smile a little too wide. "Let him go, Witchy."

Kai's voice is a breath, it's a snake, curling round her thoughts and pushing the deepest ones to the forefront of her mind. "Why should she?"

He stands, and begins to pace, voice spiralling louder and louder and Bonnie knows this: he is not lying. "How many times has she _died for you_, _killed for you, given up everything for you_?"

Bonnie can feel the rough stone beneath her, and the blood, seeping and seeping and Jeremy, Jeremy dead in front of her, and the golden thread of promise as she falls, cavern rough under her cheeks this time.

And Kai's right- she knows he is right because he knows these things only because she told him herself.

Damon's eyes are fixed on her even as Kai speaks, his silvertongue ready to leap in and coax her into seeing his point of view.

There is nothing- nothing he could say, that any of them could say that would convince her that they appreciated her worth.

* * *

"Bonnie," Caroline's baby blues wink at her as she slides the steaming mug over to Bonnie, her mascara lashes fluttering in the air. "You can tell me what's wrong."

"There's nothing wrong," She says, but it's a lie.

The rest of them tiptoe around her, seated on a counter in the boarding house, Damon talking to Kai below them.

Elena's arms are cold around her, and she rests her chin on Bonnie's shoulder as she has done since she was a baby.

She used to laugh, wrap her arms around Bonnie's waist and rest her head on her shoulder and- _Isn't he cute, Bon?"_

Or-_Caroline's being annoying. _

And then- _I need your help_, and once that one had started it didn't stop.

Bonnie's tired of being used. She stands up and walks, with the intention of going to see Damon and Kai and maybe, maybe clearing up her thoughts.

"Stay up here," Caroline blurts at the same time that Stefan's hand wraps around her wrist, "You can't go down there, Bonnie."

"Why?" She thinks, remembers their hushed conversation in these weeks building up to when they realised Kai was really here and she didn't hold them in any regard anymore.

The air stills: Bonnie detects the magic in the air, it's not from her, _it's not from her_ but they're all looking at her as if she will strike them down, she knows they think he is controlling her

"No-" She lets out a ragged scream and makes her way to the stairs, pulling off Caroline and Stefan as they try to pull her back.

It goes like this: She will fight them because she does not know them anymore, but she knows Kai. He's the enemy, but she knows how he ticks, understands what he wants from her and what he will do. It is a give and take, but it's not only her doing all of the giving.

"This wasn't your choice to make-" Bonnie chokes out, straining against Caroline and Elena's arms, wrapped around her and pulling her, pulling her back.

* * *

The slivers of moonlight shoot through her bedroom window like little silvery arrows, and even as she thinks it, they begin to dance before her eyes.

Bonnie smiles, the smallest quirk of her lips upwards and - wonders.

This is what she knows: she has been friends with Caroline and Elena longer than she can remember. They did not come back for her. Tyler and Alaric and Jeremy did not come back for her. Damon- Damon who she has hated, who she is supposed to still hate- it was Damon that came back for her.

She sits up, her little bed creaking under her.

Maybe it is time for her to go.

* * *

Damon hovers.

She pretends not to notice, but he seems to be over her shoulder everywhere she turns. And every invite she turns down from Elena (and she begins to turn them all down) there is a text from Damon asking her to come.

She waits in the dusk by the lake, dips her toes into the silvery water, keeps waiting.

"You can come out," Her voice is a breath, but he feels it.

"I know you're there, Damon."

He takes a seat next to her and Bonnie's head is so heavy, she is just _so tired_ that she lets her head fall on his shoulder.

"How are you doing, Bon Bon?"

Bonnie shrugs and her eyes flutter shut. "I miss him," She says, and Damon stiffens. "It's wrong, but he saw me."

"I see you," His voice is a whisper and his finger is gentle under her chin as he angles her head up to look at him. "I see you."

Bonnie knows- it would be easy enough to lean up and close the tiny space between their mouths. Damon would not object; she has a feeling that he almost wants this as much as she does.

But then she'd just be an Elena rebound. One of many.

So she turns her head and lets the moment flit away.

Damon clears his throat and looks back over the waters. "What happened after I left?"

"We had an understanding. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I thought I would be dead within the day."

Damon's fingers curl around her own. "Just because he wasn't as bad as he thought you would be doesn't mean he wasn't bad, Bennett."

"I know." She laughs a little, tries to find the words to explain that everything Kai did to her might have been everything she needed. "He was awful and abusive but he taught me."

"Taught you?"

"Maybe showed me. He showed me how to fight and in a way, he showed me who really cared."

Damon's voice is low when he looks at her, and she understands she is treading on dangerous waters here. "And who cares?"

Bonnie shoots him a sad smile.

"No one."

* * *

There is something liberating about knowing that nothing tethers her to Mystic Falls. Bonnie wakes the next morning after her run in with Damon and begins to pack.

She takes up smoking because it gives her something to do, stops the endless tapping of her fingers in a rhythm that will fast become unfamiliar.

Gets caught up in the slightly hazy world she can pull herself into if she tries hard enough.

Bonnie learns to avoid Elena and Caroline's whose visits she can always predict, almost like clockwork. Elena comes in the morning to rouse her out of bed and try to convince her to come on an outing with them. Of late, her voice has been edging on desparation.

Caroline comes to her in the afternoons, usually with a book in one hand and a lazy scrawl of pink lipstick on her lips, or on the corners of her mouth. Lately, it has been spreading, and Bonnie can smell Salvatore vampire on her.

Neither know what to do with a Bennett witch who won't be bid.

The afternoon sun filters in through the curtainless windows, and Bonnie begins to absentmindedly circle out places in the paper. Mourns the loss of her motivation, because she should really be helping them with whatever problem they are currently facing.

Where is the old her, so motivated, so brilliant?

"Bonnie-" Caroline's voice is as cheery as ever, blonde and bright and shining, but she stops in her tracks. "What have you done?"

Bonnie doesn't even look up from her morning paper, wraps her fingers around her coffee mug instead.

If she looks up, she will see: A room stripped bare of its carpet, of its paint, of it's furniture. A blank space.

"I'm redecorating."

"And the boxes?"

"In another city, hopefully."

Caroline takes a deep breath which never makes its way out. Bonnie stands and places her mug in the empty sink, whistling a little as she rinses it out. "You can't just-leave?"

"Why not?" She turns and looks at her once best friend, her ride or die, really _looks_. "Why should I stay?"

Caroline fumbles with the ends of her sunlight curls just as she does before she makes any impassioned speech. "Because I love you! And I need my Bon, if you leave it'll just be Elena and me and we need you, we really do." She breaks for a moment, sighs a little as she leans back onto the counter. "And you're mine and I'm yours."

Bonnie wants to cry. She bats her eyes once, remembers what it felt like for those long days when she sometimes let herself into Caroline's empty house, filled with ghosts and forbade Kai from coming anywhere near her.

"It's been you and Elena alone for a while now," She settles on finally. And won't waver until the blonde leaves.

* * *

She shouldn't have told anyone, just snuck out in the dead of night with all the ghosts, left Mystic Falls in her rearview mirror. But Bonnie Bennett- the witch inside her that's still clawing to get out- wanted to give her friends the chance.

Damon stands on the other side of her door, his chest heaving under the soft fabric of his shirt.

It will smell of death, she knows, because she can smell it from here.

He smells of death and she smells of the earth, and she remembers how well he fit around her when they used to share a house. "Don't be selfish," he is saying, but she is not listening.

Bonnie leans against her doorframe and blows a smoke ring into his face, anticipating the hand that tries to reach for her as she stumbles out onto the porch. "Why are you here?"

"It'll kill Elena to see you go. When you were gone-"

"When I was gone no one gave two shits about the fact that they had left me to rot there. Do you think I don't _know?_ Elena was captivated by the thought of getting her love back, and everyone else was captivated by her."

Damon looks at her with those bright blue eyes, as if he is going to say something, and the next thing she knows his arms are around her, and she's encased in his coldness, his death scent.

Bonnie goes as stiff as a board. She is unravelling at the seams.

"And where was I?" She whispers to herself, "I was lost and trying-trying because I am always trying, always for her- to get you home for myself. Because that was my hell. And then you left me too, and he showed me what I was. Where my worth really was."

"Bonnie," Damon says, and his arms seem to be heating her up, even though that's a load of shit, because he's a vampire that will be forever cold to her. "I care about you. I've done a shit job of expressing it, but you saved me when you didn't have to. You sent me back when you should have left me to rot, because you are worth one hundred of me, but you see the good in people, and you _help_."

"I'm tired," She says, and then-she is crying.

* * *

Damon's hand is warm in hers, but that is because she has pushed a heating charm into his glove. Bonnie squeezes his fingers and forces herself to smile.

"Why am I going to this?"

"Because," He looks down at her with a half smirk on his face that tells her that he is very, very proud of himself, "You need to give everyone a chance."

Bonnie sees her old friends lined up as if waiting for inspection. Catches Caroline biting her lip as she always does when she is nervous, and feels something shift in her heart.

They're not hers anymore.

Her hand goes a little slack in Damon's grip, and she knows then.

* * *

"You didn't even try-" He is saying, his chest back to heaving.

Bonnie examines him with strange detachement. "Why do you care?"

"Because I'm your friend!"

She shrugs. "Well, respect that I need to leave, then."

Damon looks at her and sighs, a quick spiral out of his chest and she wonders whether it will hurt him to say goodbye. She thinks of her empty, empty house, full of Bennett ghosts and starched white walls.

"Come and say goodbye," And he takes her hand in his own and leads her up the stairs.

* * *

Being with Damon is weird.

There was a point in her life where if you'd told her that she'd have sex with Damon Salvatore and he'd feel like her only friend left in the world, Bonnie would have laughed and possibly reccomended someone to a mental hospital.

His hand moves with a little butterfly flutter against the tops of her breast and he nips the soft skin there. "Stop thinking," He orders, and Bonnie throws her head back and runs her fingers through his thick hair.

Damon moves against her in a way that tells her he is trying to make her forget, and Bonnie feels as if she is fighting a losing battle. She hasn't quite got the centuries of experience he does, but- she smiles against the skin of his neck as her hand travels down, down- it's a battle she doesn't mind losing.

He flicks the button of her jeans as he pushes her down onto the bed, and Bonnie lets her eyes flutter shut with a smile as she reaches out for him, running her hands underneath the cotton of his button down.

Damon's lips are as warm as his lips can be as he makes his way down her torso, kissing the few stretch marks littering her skin.

Bonnie lies on her bed and wriggles out of her jeans, unable to focus on anything but the feel of him, pressed up against her, the feel of his mouth on her inner thing, moving-

She gasps, and he laughs.

"Stay," Damon says, later, as he thrusts into her, and she clutches his shoulder with an unintelligble sound. "Stay, stay, stay."

* * *

Bonnie leaves town the next day, watching Mystic Falls go smaller and smaller in her rearview mirror and crying as she does.

**FIN**

**notes: okay so I powered through that last part so if it's crap I apologise. But basically I've been working on this ever since Kai came into the picutre, which is a long long time but it's been a journey lol. i had this alternative ending where bonnie left town and fell in love with this other guy and then damon showed up and they occasionally fucked, but i decided not to write that. idk it's quite a gloomy piece of work, i hope the next one will be happier. **

**let me know what you think lovelies!xxx**


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